Hathaway on the solar conveyor belt and deep solar minimum

He said the exact opposite less than four years ago.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

Long Range Solar Forecast 05.10.2006
Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries.
May 10, 2006: The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl, according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. “It’s off the bottom of the charts,” he says. “This has important repercussions for future solar activity.”

I’ll take whatever Hathaway says with a grain of salt. This guy has been pretty much wrong about everything for the past decade if not longer. I still remember his prediction about how this was going to be a huge cycle peaking at over 150 in less then two years.

Sounds like he’s making it up as he goes along. Sort of like climate science.

That’s a pretty egregious contradiction Steve Goddard has highlighted. Help, Leif.
==========

Having read both articles I don’t see any contradiction. The original article was only discussing the speed of sun spots thought to be attached to the lower part of the conveyor belt.
This new article is now adding a new dimension the speed of the upper part of the conveyor belt which is surprisingly much faster than the lower part. This makes the assumption that sun spots are attached to the lower part of the belt questionable. That’s why they hope the new satellite will allow them to see and measure the speed of the lower part more directly to see it is really as slow as was thought.

It is refreshing to hear of honest science at NASA afer all “climatologist” propaganda. Hathaway et al. construct theories, expose them to critics, test and if proven wrong replace them.
“He said the exact opposite less than four years ago.”
But for a scientist that’s exactly the right thing to do if he has been proven wrong, isn’t it?
“Conjectures and refutations”

The Sun is one of the most fascinating things I know of and definitely one of the most subtle things. The closer we study it with increasingly better tools the more it defies our understanding. When you compare billions of years of Solar history to SOHO’s short tenure from 1996, it seems arrogant to assume we have it all figured out. Yet we continue to stumble over the same concept of “the science is settled” with a limited data set.

I think we will eventually realize the instruments we have been measuring solar radiations are indeed inadequate to capture the true total solar irradiation (TSI) across the entire spectrum and we did, in fact, just went through a 66 year grand solar maximum which did cause a secular step rise in the TSI.
That active period seems over, right on time, nine cycles time three from ~Sept 1699. The physics behind this will have to follow proper science pathways to shed light in that area, but only if the correct questions are probed. Now a pause of up to nine sub-normal cycles should follow. If my calculations are correct, that would bring the earth back to the same thermal energy level it was in 1699, all the energy (360 years of sunspot information to gain a little glimpse of what is going on.
That is just from a personal standpoint. I keep trying to disprove myself but can’t to date.

Anthony/mods:
Drats! A less than symbol cut off half the comment again! If you can replace the previous with this total comment. Gotta remember never to use them!
I think we will eventually realize the instruments we have been measuring solar radiations are indeed inadequate to capture the true total solar irradiation (TSI) across the entire spectrum and we did, in fact, just went through a 66 year grand solar maximum which did cause a secular step rise in the TSI.
That active period seems over, right on time, nine cycles time three from ~Sept 1699. The physics behind this will have to follow proper science pathways to shed light in that area, but only if the correct questions are probed. Now a pause of up to nine sub-normal cycles should follow. If my calculations are correct, that would bring the earth back to the same thermal energy level it was in 1699, all the energy (greater 1ºC) deep as measured in bore holes and the depths of the oceans will have dissipated. I could very well be wrong but nothing seems to have shaken my view to date.
If this multi-century (9 cycles per 99.7 years x 4) beat should ever prove true, the next grand maximum should not kick over until around 2339-2340. The sun is in the prime of its life span, I have found no reason to believe that its beats and cycles don’t repeat like clockwork. The only thing is we have not had precision electronic components on telescopes or satellites long enough to tell if ours and other similar class G stars also have these extremely long beats, but more time will cure that. At least we have greater than 360 years of sunspot information to gain a little glimpse of what is going on.
This is just my personal view.

And Leif gives further detail here:____________
Thanks in advance, Leif…

the sun and Earth are gradually moving apart. It’s not much – just 15 cm per year – but since that’s 100 times greater than the measurement error, something must really be pushing Earth outward. But what?
According to their explanation, the distance between the Earth and sun is growing because the sun is losing its angular momentum.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17228-why-is-the-earth-moving-away-from-the-sun.html

Steve Goddard (20:39:50) :
More from Hathaway’s 2006 article. His numbers are off by more than order of magnitude from what he is saying now.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm
Normally, the conveyor belt moves about 1 meter per second—walking pace,” says Hathaway. “That’s how it has been since the late 19th century.” In recent years, however, the belt has decelerated to 0.75 m/s in the north and 0.35 m/s in the south. “We’ve never seen speeds so low.”
=============
Two key sentences:
“Hathaway has been monitoring the conveyor belt using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).”
“SOHO’s dataset extends all the way back to 1996 and spans a complete solar cycle.”
Perhaps he wasn’t yet using the SOHO dataset when he wrote the 1996 article. That might explain the difference.

Leif Svalgaard: “It is honorable to learn and to change your mind when evidence does not support your ideas. David Hathaway is doing this right [there is no better believer than a reformed sinner 🙂 ].”
I remember you defending Hathaway one time when my [premature] criticism discounted him. Lesson learned on my part.
Hathaway is a good scientist. He is just reporting what he sees.
I think those errant spaceweather charts from 2009 and 2008 might have been influenced by some marketing guru.
But boy was that person ever wrong….
I’m on to Hathaway. He just reports and analyzes what he observes.
So…regardless of slowed down conveyor belt or sped up one….he reports it.
That is good science.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

I agree with savethesharks. You must admit that this is refreshing:
Hathaway says “The high speed of the conveyor belt challenges existing models of the solar cycle and it has forced us back to the drawing board for new ideas.”
Going back for fresh ideas when reality “challenges existing models.”
That’s starting to sound more like real science. Its the people who claim to be correct all the time who are the problem. The debate is never over.

Mark.R (22:43:50) :
Think it is not so directly the angular momentum as the loss of mass. As the mass drops (is converted to energy) the orbit expands due to decrease in the gravitational field, the angular momentum would then be affected in that it is the radius vector crossed by the velocity vector (L = r X v). So the mass loss is causing the orbit change which is changing the loss in angular momentum.
However, the change in orbit cannot circularly change without also a change in orbital velocity. I have often been curios on that exact aspect, is it the solar head wind the earth plows through which slows the earth’s orbital velocity and therefore counters increase in the distance from the earth to the sun? Must be but don’t know that as a fact.

Thank you wayne,leif, and just the facts and all the rest of you for the most interesting subject. A drop in world temps would be catastrophic for the planet, but in a weird way im longing for it just to see all the warmists squirm, although leif often bursts my bubble with inconvenient facts and science,Grrr!
Please, more sun stuff from you educated types!
P S is there a site i can go to for this stuff?

An obituary / requiem for the cancelled NASA moon project

Just The Facts (22:22:03)
Dr. Tony Phillips isn’t a forecaster, he is the production editor of SpaceWeather.com I don’t think he embellishes anything but does work with the person behind the story somewhat, to help convey the meaning to the general public. Dr. Phillips is only the messenger…

There’s an interesting TV series on the Solar System just started on BBC2 in the UK, presented by Professor Brian Cox. In the first instalment, Empire of the Sun, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qyxfb, 18minutes in, he introduces the work of Argentinean astrophysicist, Pablo JD Mauas, linking the flow of water in the Amazonian Iguazu and Parana Rivers to sunspots. The graph of sunspot activity versus river flow seems to show a remarkable correlation since 1904.
Cox states that as the suns nuclear reactor burns at a steady rate he’s unable to account for the linkage. I don’t know whether Cox intended it, but it’s remarkable evidence of natural climate change and maybe could be explained by Svensmarks’ cosmic rays and clouds theory

O/T, but you absolutely gotta see this. An Australan emeritus professor and climate activist has lashed out at the Large Hadron Collider project calling it just a “nuclear billiards machine” and he wants the money instead given to climate scientists. He also doesn’t like money being spent on space research.
Just the highlights of his rant:
[snip] During the hour long media briefing, Lowe
•ridiculed the scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider, saying money would be better spent by climate scientists
•argued that for propaganda purposes the media should hype-up individual weather events – such as floods in Mozambique – as proof of climate change
•claimed Hurricane Katrina was clearly caused by climate change
•claimed a conspiracy of white, Anglo Celtic elderly males was behind the skeptic movement
•with NZ government social scientist Karen Cronin advocated researching how to foment enough anger in the public that governments who refused to take climate action could be “pushed out of the way” in a political upheaval
[snip]
Apparently these conversations took place in a quiet briefing for sympathetic journalists following a low-key conference to figure out how to re-hype climate change to the public
…the recordings are on Ian Wishart’s site
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/03/breaking-news-top-aussie-climate-scientist-goes-feral-on-skeptics-and-fellow-scientists.html

We have 2 options.
1-) Wait about 86 years or so, study the sun as much as possible in the meantime.
2-) Immediately commence a hydrogen trading scheme. You just can’t keep burning up all that hydrogen and not expect anything to happen.

” that sunspots are not rooted to the bottom of the Conveyor Belt, after all? “That’s one possibility” he notes. “Sunspots could be moving because of dynamo waves or some other phenomenon not directly linked to the belt.””
Once the sun was green and full of water. But the Sun people started burning fossil fuels. Soon the greenhouse effect made the sun hotter and hotter, so hot that the Sun people stayed in their sun cities and equipped them with huge A/C units. The exhaust heat from these fusion driven units was so hot that it was pure plasma and the sun became hotter still.
Today we can see the cities of the Sun people as sunspots. They float on the molten surface of the sun and are sometimes drawn back into the depth of the Sun only to reappear several decades later at a different place.
Bang bang you’re dead brush your teeth and go to bed…

@Philip T. Downman (21:38:02)
————————————————————-
He said the exact opposite less than four years ago.
————————————————————-
“But for a scientist that’s exactly the right thing to do if he has been proven wrong, isn’t it?”
If he accepted the fact that he _could_ be wrong in both cases: yes
If he rang the alarm bell in both cases (stephen S., was iceage alarm – now we al gonna burn): no

I’m kinda lost here. I read that entire article twice and never saw the word “robust”. I’m not sure what to make of this. Without something being robust, I don’t really know what to do.

Where’s the Coriolis force in all this?
Where’s a current on (in) a spherical body, there’s Coriolis force, I learned in Physics.
And what would/could Coriolis force add to this matter?

If the plasma is moving with a greater momentum would that make it less vulnerable to the formation of sunspots?

I vividly recall as a second year geology student, ‘Lo, all those years ago’, – 42 actually, – writing as part of a response to a question on a solar cause for the Pleistocene Ice Ages, “The Sun’s energy output is relatively constant and not variable enough to cause or end an Ice Age. Solar physics are well understood.”
I blush to recall the casual certainty of that answer, but I was repeating the “Consensus” at the time as it was taught to me. It seems that the more we know, it shows us how little we know.
Perhaps the Sun is a barely perceptible variable star on a scale of centuries ?.

The question that begs asking is what drives these changes in speed of the suns conveyer belt? Is there a connection with solar motion of the large planets around the barycentre? The conveyers are not in a steady state so there must be some outside influence that is driving these changes. It is difficult to conceive how these appreciable changes could be internally driven within the sun. It appears the most logical place to look for an external driving force is the solar motion influences on the sun.

http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=globalwarming&thread=1128&page=2#43477
” . . .
interaction of the Sun’s magnetosphere and the Earth’s magnetosphere.
For instance there were observations and a couple of papers pointing to observed
heating in the upper atmosphere from this interaction.
Second is the phenomena of our entire solar system as it moves through the
Milky Way as discussed in some later papers in the AGU link I posted previously.
Politically I am really focused on how Hathaway will over time acknowledge
fellow NASA scientist Hung’s work on the barycenter and the solar cycle
and then NASA itself admit the Sun might have something to do with
climate modulation … even if its just indirect like the
magnetosphere/cosmic ray/cloud formation thing.
Hathaway just started talking Solar Grand Minimum!
. . .
My climate model of stolen solar system barycentric phenomena says …
1) This Solar Grand Minima will be a Dalton Type.
2) We will get 2 more, possibly a Maunder type after that (172*2 ys)
3) The next one after will be a barycenter ‘phase change’ maximum (MWP repeat).
4) Then a Wolf … Sporer repeat leading into the end of the Holocene
interglacial and into the next glaciation of this late Pleistocene Ice Age
(< millenium to happen).
… and I couch that with the possibility some factor pushes us to the
preMilankovitch (5 100k yr cycles) period where we did 50/50 glaciation
and interglacial. I'm doubtfull however because the paleo record indicates
we are on the low side … but when you blow up the relatively stability
of the climate (as per Lindzen) with T on the 'y axis' … who knows at this point?
. . . "
Just a few thoughts on
Hathaway NASA and
also barycenter 'phase change' maximum.

The carona of the sun is quite simular to our outer atmosphere.
Gases compressed become liquid. This liquid from rotation is compressed and as the sun slows, it expands.
The has a much greater mass that pulls much of the gases back on itself.

In reference to the changing Earth orbit, there are other orbiting bodies that change the shape of our orbit. The Earth’s orbit is becoming more elliptical each year as influenced by the outer planets.
The next ice age is where we are heading.

So the big questions remains. What influences the speed of the meridional flow?
Could it be related to rotation velocity?

STEPHEN PARKER (23:46:47) :
Thank you wayne,leif, and just the facts and all the rest of you for the most interesting subject. A drop in world temps would be catastrophic for the planet, but in a weird way im longing for it just to see all the warmists squirm, although leif often bursts my bubble with inconvenient facts and science,Grrr!
Please, more sun stuff from you educated types!
P S is there a site i can go to for this stuff?
Well, even if my crazy view were to happen there is going to be no catastrophic drop, not from my viewpoint. Just a very slow drop back to where we were 200-300 years ago. I say 200 or 300 because around 1810 it was nearly as cold as around 1700, roughly. If you can accept that we did in fact warm and if you can accept that it was primarily solar induced and accepting even the high amount stated by some AGW proponents (1ºC), it will take that same many years to bring us back to before the grand maximum, very slowly, just like it went up, very slowly. There are some assumptions there; one is co2 means very little due to h2o’s huge predominance, h2o – co2 band overlaps, h2o’s ability to change states, and clouds properties themselves.
My view was built solely upon the international SSN number series for we have no better data to look at without jumping to proxies and proxies must be taken very carefully as being real data. I’m not saying they are necessarily wrong, just usually questionable because other factors can change the same proxy leaving more questions. It’s much like temperature measurements. I have seen two foot long mercury thermometers you could read accurately to one-tenth of a degree. We usually now replace them with electronic thermometers that do good to be accurate to one degree over long periods without recalibration, sometimes two degrees. Are you going to question readings taken in 1900 by eye or readings taken in 2009 electronically as being correct?
CORRECTION to wayne (22:20:12): And while I’m here, I am going to correct another correction of my correction! “(greater 1ºC)” should have read “(less than 1ºC)”. All of that because I typed a < symbol without HTML encoding. Whew! I made a mess of my first comment.

KimW (03:37:25) :
(…) It seems that the more we know, it shows us how little we know.
Now there is a truly intelligent statement!

Very interesting.
But a little bit risky?
We have been aware of a correlation between sunspots and climate and now we see a correlation of the sunspots with conveyor belt speeds.
If we force the climate scientists to accept solar forcing and abandon the idea of CO2 and anthropogenic forcing, they will be reluctant to give up all that money. They won’t like that.
The great advantage of AGW is that none of that grant money seems to get spent on hardware. I doubt Phil Jones has spent a penny on thermometers and he certainly seems to have spent very little on computers or computer scientists and it seems that all they do is give each other work and send each other bills.
But if they accept that the sun influences climate after all (something many of us assume intuitively to be the case based on our experience of the differences between summer and winter, night and day, cloudy or open skies, then the eco-engineers will take possession of the golden goose and cook it.
They’ll say “Ok, while it isn’t CO2 and we (humanity) didn’t cause it, climate change is still bad for us and we’ll still have to spend lots of money on it.”
The grey men will make money whatever, carbon trading or from the big engineering contracts.
A space deployed sun shade is the most obvious beginning and that will be phenomenally expensive.
The real danger is that all of this money spent might actually produce some changes in climate.
My order of preference would be:
1) spend no money on climate manipulation strategies.
2) if you have to spend the money then spend it on something that won’t actually do anything
3) never spend it on things that might do something… no good can come of it and we should remeber the law of unitneded consequences
The problem is that option 1) is unrealistic because climate change is the biggest golden goose in history.
So we are left with option (2).
AGW is a phantom and demonstrably the majority of the money is actually not spent on anything at all.
SOX emissions are good example. We in the west have spent a bundle of cash on taking sulphur out of our fuels but in the IPCC 4th report they can’t actually say what the current level of SOX emissions are. They don’t know if they’ve gone down up or stayed the same. i.e. other countries have increased their emission to fillt he void.
Chances are CO2 measures will not be effective either but it doesn’t matter if they are since CO2 doesn’t seem to have a major influence on climate.
But that’s the attraction, while they can’t actually benefit the climate, they aren’t likely to do it any real harm either.
On the other hand, eco engineering means lots of money spent on hardware and whatever they do may produce dramatic and rapid results.
The problem is that eco engineers can come up with lots of ways to insulate us from solar energy but none to replace it.
It would be a shame if they sucecceed in shutting us off from the sun just when we are in a cooling spell because taking the particles out of thee atmosphere or removing the sun shade will only restore access to whatever level of solar heating is available, it can do nothing to replace the lost income while thee barriers were up.
It doesn’t help that the AGW campaign has been about pursuading us that warm in bad and cold is good. It will be too late to complain about that when we are all blocks of ice.
It would have been far better if this global warming scam had been a global cooling scam that said that CO2 was blocking the sun and causing us to cool down and cold is bad but warm is good.
We could survive that scam.
We can’t survive “warm is bad” and any effective intervention that can only reduce temperatures but not elevate them could be the end of us all.
That means we have to support option 2 and that means we have to pretend that AGW is real and the only cause of warming and we have to pretend that carbons trading is effective and all we need to do.
To understand the attraction of AGWE when faced with a dire alternative, I am remindeed of a story.
A man takes the train to work, same compartment and same fellow passengers every day. He reads his paper, does the crossword then tears it into tiny pieces which he spreads all around him on the floor.
After some months his fellow passengeres can endure no longer.
“Excuse me,” says one, “but why do you do that?”
“To keep the elephants away.” he replies.
“But there are no elephants” objects the other.
“I know, effective, isn’t it.”
That’s the attraction of believing in AGW and Carbon trading. Even carbon sequestration, if they must. The proof of its effectiveness, is that there are no elephants even if there are no elephants in the first place.
Better that than letting lose the big game hunters… the loss of the buffalo was not a good idea for the US.
All in all, while the advance in knowledge is admirable, the problem is with its impact and it may be that anything which tends to shift us from stupid expensive but ultimately ineffectual stratagies toward stupid expensive but dangerously effective stratagies has to be avoided. Interventionist measures have a habit of suffering mission creep or a cascadee of one bad move leading to another.
If the engineers have their way and we start to freeze, having effectively plunged us into a new ice age, they then have to find a way to turn up the wick on the sun, to look for ways to interefer with the conveyor belt.
Or maybe they will see what can be done to spark up Jupiter…. it isn’t that far below the required mass for spontaneous ignition and maybe they can find a way to prime the pump as it were.
Then we are in for a long sustained spider swallowing sequence (where the man who swallowed a fly that wriggled and tickled in side him ends up swallowing ever large animals.

The Blog of Steve Schwartz
“No One Knows What the F*** They’re Doing (or “The 3 Types of Knowledge”)”
http://jangosteve.com/post/380926251/no-one-knows-what-theyre-doing

The solar northern hemisphere has not been looking too bad so far in 2010.
South is a little bit dead. Solar flux has yet to reach 100, L&P on still on track.
This is getting pretty interesting.

Since no one else seems to have a better explanation. . .
The extended solar minimum is a clear sign that Sun Gods are angry at Climate Change Scientists for having ignored them and are demanding sacrifices.
Suggestions?

““Fast” in this context means 10 to 15 meters per second (20 to 30 miles per hour). A good bicyclist could easily keep up.”
Yeah, but he’d need one hell of a big waterbottle.

Steve Goddard (22:57:55) :
Still waiting for an explanation. How can you get theory right when you can’t even measure within an order of magnitude?
Please. How about most of the physics of the late 19th and early 20th century? They had great theory (and a lot of duds!).
Theory is called that, well, because its a theory. Measurement helps you refine theories that may be a bit hairy. Come on Steve… I generally like your comments, but sometimes you come up with some doozy dumb ones….

wayne (05:38:44) :
KimW (03:37:25) :
“(…) It seems that the more we know, it shows us how little we know.”
Now there is a truly intelligent statement!
Little things lead to bigger things and bigger things to more.
For all our prying and examination, only one thing can be for sure.
Little things lead to bigger things and bigger things to more.

Steve Goddard (04:52:54) :
Leif,
The silence is deafening:
2006
“The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl…In recent years, however, the belt has decelerated to 0.75 m/s in the north and 0.35 m/s in the south. “We’ve never seen speeds so low.”
2010
“The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has been running at record-high speeds for the past five years…The Great Conveyor Belt is one of the biggest things in the whole solar system and by human standards it moves with massive slowness. “Fast” in this context means 10 to 15 meters per second ”
His graph shows the peak in 2006, right when the he previously claimed the record minimum. This isn’t an issue of “theory” or “changing his mind”, rather it is an indication of a much more serious fundamental data collection problem.
~
Could we add to that the anomalous, somewhat anemic, solar southern hemisphere from cycle 23 max thru now and continues to be slowwwer.
Did we clip an interstellar cloudlette in the southern heliosphere and clog up the intake/output, some sort of heated up back pressure or what? Hit a cloud slow down your system and watch for the consequences to your system. Make sure it’s a dustier, dirtier, faster cloud you clip. You’d see a trickle down effect throughout the entire system starting in the outer bubble. What does low level sectional descreening look like in it’s infancy?
Did that article state it was a surface slowing, not an undercurrent? Will have to read it again.
We’ll sign this,
Group W bench
We could be guilty of litterin’ and causing a disturbance.

The problem with science is that it thinks the sun and planet recharges itself somehow and the rotational show down is caused by other factors.
The sun and planets are already infused with rotational energy and as the mass is used, it has to slow.
The mixture of gases and mass makes for a very interesting adjustment of rotation forcing mass to the outer perimenter and leaving gases to the inner perimeter.
This then is totally contrary to our theory on what the core of our planet is made of.
The suns core is super compressed gases so why is our planets core any different?
We have density and atmospheric pressure that gives us gravity but under the surface is a whole different set of rules.

It would probably be for the better if scientist were quiet for a while now — And concentrate on science.
What we know, you could write a book. What we don’t know, you could fill a really really large library.

Very interesting research. Meanwhile, isn’t it interesting that despite one of the deepest solar minimums in a century that we’ve just passed through, that we are still seeing such high global temps? To what do the AGW skeptics attribute this. Currently March 2010 tropospheric temps are spiking way above 20 year records:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
Warmth at all levels of the troposphere, especially check out 14,000 ft. and click on the record high button and see how far above March tropo temps are.
Now, I know, AGW skeptics will say this is all either El Nino, or even (as on misquided and underinformed poster said) because it shows the earth is actually cooling. Sorry, both are insufficient.
Warming of the troposphere is exactly the main effect predicted by AGW models, with numerous side effects, such as melting of sea ice, warming of ocean, melting of glaciers, rising of oceans, etc. But specifically, the warming of the troposphere is the key to them all because that is wear the GH gases are rising, and where they trap the heat. Now yes, I fully realize that GH gases don’t actually “trap” the heat, but rather, act through the process of absorption and re-radiation of heat, but the net effect is to “trap” heat, by radiating some of the heat back to the surface and to other molecules of GH gases in the troposphere. Of course some of the heat is radiated back into space, and thank god it is, or we’d be cooked in a few days.
Also, despite the recent extreme solar minimum, we haven’t seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004, probably won’t this winter, and have actually seen several negative antarctic sea ice anomalies in the past few years. How do AGW skeptics explain this? We’ve got record warmth in the troposphere and the arctic sea ice still did not recover to it’s seasonal norm this winter– all despite the deep solar minimum. Could these solar cycle play less of a role in the climate than the increased antropogenic GH gases, as AGW theorists are saying?

Humanity has been studying the sun for thousands of years but there’s still a lot about it that our most learned solar scientists have yet to learn.
It’s nice when solar scientists acknowledge this. Thanks Leif.

To expand a bit on Ninderthana’s and Ralph’s explanation, besides the density issue, if the lower belt is 200,000km below the Sun’s surface, per the article, simple geometry makes clear that the lower belt has a considerably shorter distance to travel before reaching the upwelling zone, no? So, it darn well has to be slower.
And a nitpicking observation: I think it is unhelpful to refer to the Sun’s axial tilt when what is being described is the tilt of the Earth’s orbital plane. L

Ralph,
Surely I don’t jest. The N. Hemisphere winter was only the coldest in 30 years in SOME areas…Greenland and part of N. Canada for example, saw record warmth. The record cold in other areas is directly attributed to the negative AO index, which pushed colder air further south, while warming parts of the arctic. For example, if it had been extremely cold over the whole north, we probably would have seen the arctic sea ice recover to its normal level this winter, but it has not. Why? Because parts of the arctic were warmer than normal! AGW is a global phenomenon, and as such, no one cares if you’ve got extra frost on your pumpkin this winter in Pumpkin Patch, AK. Globally, the last few months have been among the warmest on instrument record, and this is what AGW models speak to…not local and short-lived abberations. We are looking at what the long term trends are. The Met Office has predicted that 2010 will likely be the warmest on instrument record, and I fully concure. Considering we’ve just passed through this 100 year deep solar minimum, how could we be facing a record warm year? Answer: Because the sun plays less of a role in the climate than the buildup of anthropogenic GH gases…this is the heart of the AGW hypothesis, and so far, despite the long and deep solar minimum, the hypothesis holds up…

Leif Svalgaard (10:01:07) :
Can you elaborate on the loss of C02 (or carbon in particular)?
Loss to space and/or geologic sequestration can accomplish that.

I see good science, good data (facts) and poor theory. Looks to me like the conveyor belt is busted and needs to be pitched into the trash bin.

Leif @ 9:04:02
Thanks for the correction. Does anyone have any idea why the sunspots during the Maunder Minimum were predominately southern hemispheric?
===============

a little carelessness (apologies for the redo)
It is more than a proposition that the galactic environment that the sun encounters changes its mechanisms of energy action. The sun’s core becomes protonically heavier as part of the process causing the bottom layers of its conveyor belt (convective currents) to slow. This process involves how the sun’s ability to fight off the influx of cosmic rays is overcome. In this fight the rate of flow of the top layers of the sun’s conveyor belt should be expected to speed up as their magnetic potential become more eclipsed by the ionically differentiated magnetic strength of the Interstellar cloud (as part of the star renewal process).
These changes interact with earth’s magnetosphere by allowing it to densify because of the declining impact of the solar wind. Subsequently, earth’s outgoing radiation budget increases and with elemental lags attached the heat budget of all atmospheric layers changes in the only possible abruptly forced turns.

If conveyor belt increses its velocity it means frequency increases and wave length (diameter) decreases.

J.Hansford (02:48:30) :
I got no qualms with Hathaway being wrong on previous occasions….. Science is about being wrong, usually more times than you are right….
Dang! Then AGW must be good science, really good!!
Here I been thinking it’s all politics and environmentalism. What was I thinking!
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But seriously maybe he could learn this from Einstein and be more careful before asserting things:
“If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.”

Leif and I had an interesting discussion over at a thread called ‘social networking’ about solar issues. The sun is definately fun.

a little carelessness (apologies for the redo. Also html link changed )
It is more than a proposition that the galactic environment that the sun encounters changes its mechanisms of energy action. The sun’s core becomes protonically heavier as part of the process causing the bottom layers of its conveyor belt (convective currents) to slow. This process involves how the sun’s ability to fight off the influx of cosmic rays is overcome. In this fight the rate of flow of the top layers of the sun’s conveyor belt should be expected to speed up as their magnetic potential become more eclipsed by the ionically differentiated magnetic strength of the Interstellar cloud (as part of the star renewal process).
These changes interact with earth’s magnetosphere by allowing it to densify because of the declining impact of the solar wind. Subsequently, earth’s outgoing radiation budget increases and with elemental lags attached the heat budget of all atmospheric layers changes in the only possible abruptly forced turns.

KimW (03:37:25) :
I vividly recall as a second year geology student, ‘Lo, all those years ago’, – 42 actually, – writing as part of a response to a question on a solar cause for the Pleistocene Ice Ages, “The Sun’s energy output is relatively constant and not variable enough to cause or end an Ice Age. Solar physics are well understood.”
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I feel your pain! Though it’s in a different topic.
I find it so fascinating that Nir Shaviv has found that the spiral arms of the galaxy have an important role in climate on earth over the ages.
He’s in this 5 part series in YouTube on the sun and cosmic rays:

I’m a bit confused. If I look at the the graph of conveyor velocity, the 2006 values are substantially higher than those of, say, 2001. How could Hathaway have said in 2006 that the conveyor is crawling so slowly, like never before?

Anthony, I was struck by the resemblance of the solar conveyor belts to Earth’s “Hadley Cells,” which are responsible for wet tropics. Nice animation:
http://www.nodvin.net/snhu/SCI219/demos/Chapter_7/Chapter_07/Present/animations/50_1_2_1.html
The circulation of the sun’s belts is due to different physical reasons, but the resemblance is striking.

OT….as I read and contribute to these comments, I’m really awe-struck by the depth of analysis, seriousness of discussion and attention to detail! Solar physics, atmospheric chemistry, evolutionary biology….
The climate change crowd seem to think we are ignorant, Neanderthal “deniers” without science…..quite honestly, I see MUCH more honest peer review going on these comment threads than in the published climatology literature!
Well done, everyone!

kim (10:43:04) :
Leif @ 9:04:02
Thanks for the correction. Does anyone have any idea why the sunspots during the Maunder Minimum were predominately southern hemispheric?
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Kim, you go girl!
Yes indeed, that’s my kind of question.
Group W thinks at the time of Maunder we were clipped by a passing interstellar cloudlette that predominately hung above the heliosphere as it passed. Just messy enough to mess up the grids of magnetic field reconnections that occur between the ISMF and IMF. (you know fill em full of dust, and cool gas traps, so heliosphere can’t breath properly) Ya know the interstellar region is a messy and chaotic place, (probably where the sun gets some of its chaotic attitude lol)
How about a Medieval warm period created by warm interstellar cloudlette (warm ionized cloudettes too sure) wafting over and around your helisophere bubble or a shock zone. Your ambient background in interstellar space has like moving scenery.
Just passed thru a shock zone lasting maybe 50 years, wouldn’t we expect the region around a collision zone to have wafting cloudlettes travelling in the same direction as the interstellar clouds themselves?
The solar cycle varies? Well so does the so called ambient background and we are learning just how frequent those changes can be within the local interstellar neighborhood this heliosphere is embedded in.
Here’s a bizarro..
The local cavity is open above the halo as well as below. (it’s chute) vizualize a blast coming down the chute and taking us all out to become one of those little merging galaxies we see wrapped around the Milky Way.

Leif
You realize that I had the advantage of reading the investigative studies at http://www.leif.org. None of which are disputed. What is however asserted is that the mechanisms driving the solar dynamo are dependent upon its location in the galaxy….I am quite confident that data obtained from SDO will correspond with the data events registered by Voyager and next generation Voyagers….As will the continuation of earthbound events associated with the 700 years young Ice Age

………………CRS, Dr.P.H. (13:34:48) :
The climate change crowd seem to think we are ignorant, Neanderthal “deniers” without science…..quite honestly, I see MUCH more honest peer review going on these comment threads than in the published climatology literature!
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Truth be known i’ve got to plead guilty here to the ignorant, Neanderthal, denier
bits but thanks to the great brain trust on here…i’ve got science!

Hi Leif,
You are at least one who steps up and explains what it is. But I don’t see any attempt and explaining the Livingston and Penn theory in any way. But to be fair so is none else. I would like to know how the L & P theory fits in the dynamics of solar activity, since this may explain the ” all knowing Maunder Minimum” as some have suggested. But thank you for your input.

So, now that we’ve come to the end of the deep solar mimimum, how do AGW skeptics explain that we still did have not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004. and global temps continue at near, or above record levels? Seriously, I concede completely that errors were made by AGW theorists and researchers, but it seems that temps continue at record levels in the troposphere and arctic sea ice continues in a negative anomaly state…exactly two specific events predicted by the AGW hypothesis. What reason would I have to really doubt the AGW models? Specifically look at:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-file.php?report=global&file=nh-seaice&year=2010&month=1&ext=gif
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
and tell me what reason I would have to doubt that the AGW hypothesis is correct?

We have a double layer and then accrue a third layer. And at times more and in recent history. swt
Let’s see, we ride around in this heliosphere bubble, inside a warm cavity (open ended). Cavitie contains warm (LIC) Cool (G) clouds. Now within your respective cavity, cloud configuration in walks a cloudlette. How many layers of what do we have now? For fun add magnetic field config for all components in the Local Cavity. But don’t forget the layers.
Messy ol chaos anyway.

Leif Svalgaard (18:23:06) :
..Contrary to common belief sunspots do not form from a huge ‘flux rope’ that erupts from below, but by the coalescence of many small elements and pores. It is unknown what cause this compaction process,.
It is possible that the L&P observations show that the ‘compaction’ process varies with time and is becoming quite low now [for unknown reason].
So, it is now clear that the magnetic cycle does not go away and that the problem must somehow lie in the visibility of Sunspots. My own guess is that the Maunder minimum was just a manifestation of a strong L&P effect.
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Nice post thanks Leif.
Wouldn’t it be just dandy to know what the solar cycle was like say ah 20,000 years ago?
Geesh we really don’t have a good galactic time frame to wrap our heads around.
Gotta a couple of warmer periods and more on cooler periods or mins. We’ve just gone through a warmer maxi period being followed by cooler. Around and around we go.
But we site more cooler periods. Which is indicative of what, slowly increasing to cooler like the AG froggy but in the other direction and in the “galactic time frame?” for getting to the G ah ah cloud.
Group W
(officially now a cult)
Thank you Dr. S. may we have another. lol

R. Gates (17:25:02) :
“So, now that we’ve come to the end of the deep solar mimimum, how do AGW skeptics explain that we still did have not seen a positive arctic sea ice anomaly since 2004. and global temps continue at near, or above record levels?”
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You continue to talk about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) as if it were a proven fact. It is an unproven hypothesis. There is no empirical evidence to support the hypothesis; only computer models that have been manipulated to conform to a political consensus driven by powerful monied interests.
Let’s start at the beginning. CO2 molecules capture a small portion of surface energy and transfer this energy to the other gas molecules in the atmosphere. Some of this energy escapes into space and the rest finds its way back to the surface, where it’s eventually re-radiated.
Note that CO2 doesn’t actually retain energy; it acts only to transfer captured energy to the other molecules in the atmosphere through collisions. In short, the greenhouse effect of CO2, even at concentrations well below current levels, is energy-limited and not concentration-limited.
Some climate scientists claim that water vapor amplifies the radiative “forcing” of man-made CO2 — creating a sort of magic “multiplier effect” that raises surface temperatures. But where’s the proof? There isn’t any. (“The models all agree,” isn’t proof.)
Hundreds of thousands of radiosonde measurements have failed to find a pattern of upper trophospheric heating predicted by the models. Global temperatures flatlined in the late 1990s and have been declining slightly since 2002. The IPCC models predicted a steady upward trend, not a decline. Ergo, their predictions have been falsified.
Scientists don’t understand how the sun works, they don’t understand how clouds work, they have a rudimentary understanding of how oceans work, and they’re still studying the impact of volcanic eruptions. In other words, they still have a lot to learn about the earth’s climate system. Yet, the AGW camp is absolutely certain human-induced CO2 emissions cause global warming.
There’s not a single piece of evidence in the data record that supports the AGW hypothesis. It is a belief driven by money and a hatred of “polluters,” those nasty capitalists on a mission to destroy Mother Earth through their relentless efforts to raise mankind’s living standards. All of its claims are based on inaccurate, incomplete and misleading analysis. As such, it ranks in the same scientific category as a belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
But there are still save-the-earth diehards who cling to the bogus man-causes-warming theory.

Leif Svalgaard (18:23:06) :
So, it is now clear that the magnetic cycle does not go away and that the problem must somehow lie in the visibility of Sunspots. My own guess is that the Maunder minimum was just a manifestation of a strong L&P effect.
Exactly! The Sun cycle can be thought of as two rough unevenly sinusoidal waves intersecting each other on a graph of time. When either number (Polarity 1 vs Polarity 2) dips below a certain point, the effect on the sunspot number is nil (as opposed to reducing it), as the total number of sunspots with a certain polarity cannot be below 0 (for obvious reasons). The Livingston and Penn effect brings both cycles down so that more time is spent below the point. In most cases the two cycles have a period of overlap at solar minimum. In this case, the Polarity 2 stayed low as Polarity 1 dropped. During the Maunder Minimum, both waves stayed below zero except at the very top, every 22 years.(Since there are 2 graphs, this works out to sunspots every 11 years.) This means that sunspot numbers below 0, though theoretically impossible, must be considered in order to truly understand the Maunder Minimum (and quite possibly all unusually long minima between cycles).
http://psc.suijs.info/sc24predict1.htm
I agree with the prediction at the bottom. It shows a more traditional time for solar maximum, 2011 (vs 2014 by NASA). The end of Cycle 23 (fall of graph 1 below 0) took place on time or maybe a little early. The beginning of Cycle 24 (rise of graph 2 above 0) was the only thing that was late. Some phenomena that have been observed (large active regions near 20-25 degrees latitude that stick around for 2-3 solar rotations) are normally associated with the time around solar maximum. Leif, can you give any feedback on this?
We live in interesting times.

Leif Svalgaard (22:33:41) :
We do measure the total energy of solar radiation across the entire spectrum.
And what sort of information does the spectral irriadiance impart, on say the green line at 560nm,or the h20 band at 1500nm?

I think David Hathaway should be commended for not lacing his artcle with agenda but instead added the proper ‘might’, ‘could’, and ‘possibly’s. That read more as proper science article about a question.
I wonder if this might be looked at from another perspective. Could the conveyors have a normal speed of ~12.5 m/s as it was holding in the months in 2008-2009 when there were no sunpots at all (look closely at the graph) and any deviation from this tends to slow or speed the normal advance. Could you follow that? Maybe the conveyor free-idles at ~12.5 m/s, all others readings are showing forces slowing or speeding it from that idle speed. All data points at spotless months seem to show that onesingle speed. That’s curious.

kirkmyers (19:44:49) :
…
Let’s start at the beginning. CO2 molecules capture a small portion of surface energy and transfer this energy to the other gas molecules in the atmosphere. Some of this energy escapes into space and the rest finds its way back to the surface, where it’s eventually re-radiated.
Note that CO2 doesn’t actually retain energy; it acts only to transfer captured energy to the other molecules in the atmosphere through collisions. In short, the greenhouse effect of CO2, even at concentrations well below current levels, is energy-limited and not concentration-limited.
…
I’m so glad you made that point. It is one aspect of radiative transfer I see miss stated many times. That’s a good proper explanation and key to proper understanding of how the atmosphere works.
And I take the ‘energy-limited’ means the speed is limited at which a given amount of energy can move through a given amount of the gas and re-distributed to other molecules. The admittance is finite. Right? Is admittance the correct property?

kirkmyers (19:44:49) :
No, the term is definitely not admittance. Should have taken the time to open my book.

Leif Svalgaard (20:37:26)
I am aware of that,the distinction is necessary for either radiative reasons or aeronomy calculations,and the absorption lines etc.
In Krivova et al reconstruction of spectral irradiance fig7e and f we can see a decrease in the h20 band in the early seventies,and little decrease in the h20/co2 overlap bands.
At present say the spectra I mentioned above,in the descending phase of sc23 these spectra have increased slightly then stabilized,

Anna v
In any case, the only true climate prophecy is that “an ice age is coming” maybe in 100 years, maybe in 1000 but the clockwork of the Vostock data shows that it will come. So, if humans are not blown up in a nuclear catastrophe, or an asteroid does not hit earth, they should be planning for an ice age…
I do believe though that there should be geo engineering studies for the case of an ice age coming. A volcano explosion could trigger it at any time.
While it could take as much as 80,000 years or so for the next ice age to fully bottom out, a VEI 7 or P eruption would vastly accelerate the progression. A series of relatively close VEI 4, 5 & 6 eruptions would make for a very harsh and catastrophic downward spike.
Just look at what Redoubt did for cooling things down in 2009/2010, blowing to little over 12 miles high and following with more than a dozen similarly high eruptions. Sarychev soon followed and made its contribution. Those were on the heels of Okmok and Kasatochi in the northern hemisphere. A few years of no larger eruptions would be ok with me.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm